"For every company departure or disinvestment event that becomes public, there are countless others that we don't hear about," he says. "If the event does not become public knowledge, there is no way to add it to the list."

Vranich says he relies on public records, and some companies leave town with no fanfare. Also, he excludes individual retail stores or restaurants of big chains and companies whose departures appear unrelated to California's tax and regulation environment.

"In the seven weeks since the last report, another 11 companies have left California completely or re-directed substantial capital to build facilities out of state that in an earlier era would have been built here," Vranich says. "The number in today's list is lower than the usual four-per-week average and I believe it's because companies shy away from making such announcements during the end-of-year holiday season."

Those additional companies includes one in Orange County: Pick Up Stix, a San Clemente 70-unit restaurant chain, which was sold and moved to Bloomington, Minn.

The others are:

Five Cubits Inc., from Livermore to Elmhurst, Ill.

Art & Antiques magazine, from Malibu to Wilmington, NC

Obedia, from Los Angeles to Tennessee

Frama-Tech Inc., from Los Angeles to Navarre, Fla.

Carousel Carpet Mills, from Ukiah to Georgia

Fleetwood Enterprises Inc., from Riverside to Ducatur, Ind

Granada Corp., from Santa Barbara to Colorado Springs, Colo.

SumTotal Systems, from Mountain View to Gainesville, Fla.

Acument Global Technologies moved from Troy, Michigan to to Sterling Heights, Mich. (Michigan beat out California and Illinois because of special tax credits.)

Vranich also lists Force By Design, in San Francisco and Sal Luis Obispo, that received special tax credits for its East Lansing, Mich. expansion. But co-founder Micaich Filkins said the Michigan expansion was to serve customers in that state, and the company, which has 8 people in California now, anticipates having 75 to 100 here eventually.

Where were these companies going?

Texas, 33 companies headed to the Lone Star State

Arizona, 18 companies packed up for the Grand Canyon State

Colorado, 15 moved all or in part to the Centennial State

Nevada and Utah tied with 13 companies each

Vranich stresses that he doesn't count companies that are expanding to new territories or buying firms in other states; that cut because of the recession but remained open in California; or that went bankrupt and had no evidence the closure was caused by California policies. Among the excluded companies:

PayPal Inc. opened in Malaysia to serve Southeast Asia

Three separate Intel expansions in Ireland, Vietnam and China

Cisco System is spending $1 billion in Russia

Valeant's move from Aliso Viejo because of its merger with Biovail in Canada

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